


sister winter

by idioglossia



Series: Christmas Fics 2019 [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, not to be cliche but there's a forest here lads, oh my god the pining, written for a fandom i'm not in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21954310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idioglossia/pseuds/idioglossia
Summary: It only takes a heartbeat.Ritchie looked at Eddie mid-laugh. It was a real laugh, his head thrown back, mouth open wide, shoulders heaving, leaving the column of his neck exposed to Ritchie’s gaze.The image hit him like a truck, like a revelation, like acondemnation, which it was. Eddie was laughing, and he wanted to kiss him.-Five times Ritchie wanted to kiss Eddie and one time Eddie did.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Christmas Fics 2019 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580572
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	sister winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGlovedArtist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGlovedArtist/gifts).



> To Manar: *yeets this angst at you and runs*
> 
> To everyone else: Sooooo... I've never actually seen the It movies? Or read the books? Basically, I'm basing this entire fic off of that my friend told me when she requested it, one fic I read, and a clip or two from the movie I used to check dialogue. This was written with her tastes and stuff in mind too, so, ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Also, I hc Eddie as having Munchausen by-proxy, gifted to him by his mother, which fueled his hypochondria. Not sure if it's relevant or not, but it plays a minor role in scene 2.

_i._  
It only takes a heartbeat.

Ritchie looked at Eddie mid-laugh. It was a real laugh, his head thrown back, mouth open wide, shoulders heaving, leaving the column of his neck exposed to Ritchie’s gaze. His heart skipped a beat.

The image hit him like a truck, like a revelation, like a condemnation, which it was. Eddie was laughing, and he wanted to kiss him.

Just off the top of his head, he could think of ten reasons why that was so, so wrong. If Ritchie had a little time, he was sure that he could come up with twenty more. This was Eddie, to boot- there’s gotta be some special law against wanting to kiss your best friend.

“Ritchie? You good, man?” Eddie asked, and he snapped back from his panic, managing to slap on an illusion of a smile. “You zoned out there.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about your mom,” he said automatically. “Something to get me through the long, _hard_ day.”

Eddie snorted and hit him gently on the shoulder. “It’s good to know that you’re going out tonight. Your mom and I are gonna need some private space.”

Just like that, the moment passed, and Ritchie’s heart settled down. _It was nothing,_ he told himself firmly. _Nothing_.

(It was everything.)

ii.  
The next time hit just as hard as the first and took longer to resolve itself.

The thing was, Eddie was crying. Hard. The kind of crying that made it hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to do anything but give in and keep crying. The sort of thing that Ritchie never wanted to see Eddie doing.

“I just- I just wanna be normal, not this fucking sickling of a kid,” he said in between shuddering breaths and broken sobs. “I don’t want to feel so _sick_ anymore.”

They were alone, which might not have been the best idea- Ritchie was pretty sure that if Eddie didn’t calm down soon, he was going to trigger an asthma attack and start panicking even more. As it was, though, Ritchie knew that Eddie wouldn’t want anyone else to see him like this, snot and tears running down his chin in a semi-viscous mixture and his eyes already starting to turn red. And even though Eddie had been the one to ask Ritchie to hang out and the one to start the discussion that lead to this, he didn’t feel like he should be here either.

But Ritchie was here now, and he was going to help Eddie. First, he slowly slid one arm around Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him close and rubbed his arm lightly. That made Eddie’s breathing ease out a little, and he glanced at Ritchie instead of just staring at the concrete they were sitting on. The tears didn’t stop, but he blinked a couple of times and rubbed at his right eye.

“Hey,” Ritchie said firmly, butting his head against Eddie’s an then leaning back again. “That’s my friend you’re dissing there. If you wanna talk about him like that, you gotta come through me first.”

That managed to coax a trembling smile from Eddie. His lips were still parted a little, still quivering, and his breathing wasn’t great, but it was a smile.

Almost instantly, Ritchie was struck with the desire to kiss him. It would be easy, too, to just lean over a couple inches and press their lips together. It would take less than a moment, less than a heartbeat. Maybe it would make Eddie smile again. Maybe it would make him stop crying. Maybe it would-

Thinking stuff like that was wrong, he reminded himself. Even if it wasn’t, there was no way that Eddie would want that. Would want him.

“Oh really?” Eddie said softly, playing along. “I think I know him better than you do, man. We’re almost the same person, everyone says so.”

“Nuh-uh. We’re, like, telekinetically bonded. I know everything about him, and he’s a pretty decent guy.” Ritchie tried to shove away his thoughts as best as he could, but the desire lingered.

Eddie rolled his eyes, but the fragile smile grew stronger. “It’s telepathically, dumbass. Telekinesis means that you can move shit with your mind.”

“Exactly. That’s why I said telekinetically and not telekinesis.”

“Oh my god. I hate you.”

Ritchie grinned, glad to see his friend back to normal, even if things still felt a little off-balance. “You love me and you know it.”

“Nope. I’ve just been using you to get to your mom.” Eddie said, leaning back. Ritchie took this as a signal to pull away his arm.

He had to admit that sent a little stab of pain directly to his heart, but what did he expect, after saying that? An “I do love you, Ritchie, let’s get married”? No.

So he put the back of his hand on his forehead and tipped his head back, gasping dramatically. “The betrayal! The drama! The horror!”

Eddie laughed again, flicking Ritchie’s closest arm. “Oh, shut up.”

Ritchie bumped their shoulders together, relaxing again. “Come on, let’s go see if we can find something to do. Enough moping about!”

“Alright, alright,” Eddie grumbled, pushing himself to his feet. “But if anyone asks why my eyes are red, I’ve been smoking pot.”

He laughed, then flipped Eddie a thumbs up. “Sounds good to me.”

They moved on, and they didn’t talk about it. That was what happened, with moments like that. They happened. They dealt with them. They didn’t talk about it afterwards. It was easy, uncomplicated, logical. It was how things were done too, like an industry standard. So Ritchie filed the whole thing away into the recesses of his mind and simply let go of it. Like it was nothing. It was nothing.

 _iii._  
The first thing that he noticed was that Eddie was sitting almost on his lap.

Actually, that was the only thing that Ritchie really noticed: Eddie. Eddie, who was sliding one hand up the outside of his leg. Eddie, who was leaning towards him. Eddie, Eddie, _Eddie_.

“Eddie,” Ritchie said out loud, and he smiled.

“Ritchie,” he said back, not stopping his slow approach.

“What are you doing?” Ritchie choked out, unable to tear his eyes away from the bare column of Eddie’s throat. Was the collar of his shirt wider today or something?

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked rhetorically and remarkably unlike Eddie. He kept moving, other hand getting planted beside Ritchie’s hips and continuing his advance.

Ritchie had just put one hand on Eddie’s shoulder to push him away when Eddie kissed him.

 _Oh,_ he though. _So this is what it’s like._

He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but Ritchie leaned into Eddie, kissing him back as best as he knew how. It was a little awkward; he didn’t know quite how to tilt his head, or how to keep their teeth from knocking, but it was good, it was great, even.

They both broke away panting lightly. Eddie’s cheeks were deliciously flushed, and up this close, he could pick out the little details of his face. Ritchie leaned forwards, eyes half-closed to go for another kiss-

And woke up, face burning and sheets damp with sweat. He took big, gulping breaths, trying to calm himself and failing. God, that whole thing had been a dream. Of course it had been a dream. Like Eddie would ever do shit like that. Like he would ever be so… perverted.

Ritchie lay flat on his back, tangled up in his sheets and stuck in his own self pity for maybe five minutes. In the end, it was his bladder that convinced him to move, and he slunk quietly to the bathroom. Since he was there anyways, he splashed a little cold water on his face. Maybe that would help him think straight.

When he settled back into bed, Ritchie did everything he could to avoid thinking about the dream. He counted sheep. He counted items in his room. Under his breath, he recited whatever scraps of writing he could remember.

None of it worked. It felt like the sense-memory of Eddie’s body against his was branded into Ritchie’s mind, into his very skin. He had wanted to kiss Eddie, and he had done it. And now, awake and aware, he still wanted to kiss him, even though he knew that was bad, was fundamentally and morally wrong.

He groaned and covered his face with his blanket, as if to hide his thoughts from the world. Ritchie wanted to kiss Eddie, and that wasn’t going to change.

 _iv._  
The sun was high above the water, and Ritchie could feel it slowly frying his back. He was pretty sure that he’d have a nice sunburn tomorrow, but at the moment, he didn’t care. Sunscreen, important as it was or whatever, was the bane of his existence. No matter how careful you were, you still managed to get in every place it wasn’t supposed to be and none of the places it was supposed to. Plus, it got all over your fingertips and by extension, your food. Ritchie was incredibly jealous of people who had never tasted sunscreen.

Eddie, on the other hand, looked more than a little ghosty. There were little (and not-so little) smears of the white cream on his ears, nose, and back. He applied his sunscreen viciously and liberally, even if he was kind of messy about it.

Maybe if his feelings towards Eddie were a little more platonic or Ritchie in a little more denial, he would have offered to rub the spots in. If he were bolder, he would have gone for the one by the corner of Eddie’s mouth last and let their eyes meet afterwards. If he were a little smarter, he wouldn’t be killing himself thinking about the whole blasted scenario, but Ritchie was none of those things, so he kept looking.

He braced himself for the rush of guilt that came with doing things like this. It was a familiar friend of his, that wave of stinging revulsion. It followed his every move, haunted him when he looked at boys, dug its fingers into his neck when he thought about Eddie.

But this time, it didn’t hit.

There was still a little guilt, to be sure, but there was no moment when Ritchie felt like he was drowning in it. It was manageable, practically tame compared to what he was used to.

He wanted to kiss Eddie, and at least for that moment, that wasn’t something that he wanted to change.

 _v._  
The Annual Penobscot County Fall Fair was not a spectacular affair, but Ritchie thought that it was much better than being stuck in school. Supposedly, they were here to learn about the different types of agriculture and about the “biodiversity” in the area, but everyone knew that it was more of a chance for a day off, to go eat fair food and ogle at the prize-winning farm products.

Ritchie was more than happy to spend a nice fall day outside with Eddie, so he wasn’t going to complain about anything. Their teacher had insisted that they use the buddy system when they were out and about, and so they were paired together.

At the moment, they were wandering around the fair and eating whatever stuck their fancy. So far, Ritchie had eaten a funnel cake, a deep-fried Snickers bar, a half-burnt corn cob, and an entire potato, cut into a spiral shape and stuck on a stick. Eddie had nibbled at all of those, usually coming to the conclusion that they were gross as hell. They were also going on the fair rides and games; none of the really fun ones, but Ritchie was happy enough with the tea cups and log ride.

(At times, if Ritchie did a mental squint, it seemed almost like a date. They shared the food they were eating, their arms brushed as they walked, and Eddie kept smiling at him, this special sort of smile that made Ritchie’s heart do a backflip.)

“Hey,” Ritchie said, taking Eddie’s hand and pointing at the ferris wheel. Ritchie swallowed heavily, but stayed focused. “Why don’t we go do that? Maybe we can get a better look at the fields, use that to bullshit some of the worksheet we got.”

“You’re going to do the worksheet?”

Eddie laughed. “I mean, probably not. But just in case the teacher makes us discuss this stuff in class, I want to have some idea of what’s going on.”

“Fair enough.” He capitulated easily, not having any real goal here other than to eat as much junk food as he could put into his body and hang out with Eddie. “Let’s go, then.”

They didn’t let go of each other’s hand for the duration of their walk, which attracted some weird looks, but no one stopped them. Honestly, that seemed like a miracle; Ritchie felt like his feelings were leaking out every part of his body and practically tattooed onto his face. (But then again, he always seemed to feel like that, and yet Eddie never noticed. Maybe he was better at hiding things than he thought.)

Up close, the ferris wheel was larger and more brightly coloured. Ritchie let his eyes trail up the lights strung about the frame, which he’d been told would light up at night. Of course, they would be long gone by then, but he thought it might have looked nice.

When they sat down in the little passenger car, their knees bumped together. There was simply no other space for their legs, which was a little awkward. It made Eddie blush a little, glancing down at the point where their legs met.

“Well, I guess one of us is going to have to chop off our legs so that the other will have space,” Ritchie said, keeping his face as straight as he could manage, ignoring the bored looking staff member closing the gate-door-thing. “The only question is who will make the sacrifice?”

That got a small laugh out of Eddie. “Well, it’s not going to be me, so it’s time to say goodbye to your legs.”

“Oh no,” he said jokingly. “What will your mom say?”

“I’m sure she’ll live. There’s other, more handsome, fish in the sea,” he grinned, leaning forward and putting his head in his hands.

“What, you think I’m not handsome?” Ritchie acted faux-offended, modelling his good looks off for Eddie as best as he could in the passenger car’s cramped space. That drew another laugh from his friend.

“Nope,” Eddie said, popping the p, even as his cheeks pinked slightly. “You’re as ugly as a rock.”

“Am I, though?” he asked, leaning closer teasingly. “Don’t you think I’m handsome?”

To Ritchie’s surprise, Eddie’s face, already a little flushed, turned bright red. He glanced down- at Ritchie’s lips.

Were they going to-? Eddie certainly looked… willing, if not outright wanting. Their eyes met and Ritchie’s breathing hitched. Almost unconsciously, he put a hand on Eddie’s knee. In turn, he leaned forwards to the point where their noses were almost touching. The space between them felt simultaneously like miles and millimetres. Ritchie tilted his head a little-

The ferris wheel jerked to a stop and Ritchie realized that they were at the top. They both jolted back, and he knew that he was blushing furiously. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Eddie was looking away too, staring pointedly at the landscape.

They were silent on the way down, looking anywhere but each other. Ritchie could feel his heart thumping aggressively in his chest the whole time.

“So,” he said finally, once they got off the wheel. “See anything good for that worksheet?”

“Honestly? I didn’t recognize a single thing up there,” Eddie admitted unabashedly. “Fuck plants, man. Fuck ‘em.”

Ritchie laughed, feeling the mood shift to something more manageable. They were gonna be fine.

 _vi._  
Eddie’s stomach fucking hurt.

Okay, that was probably a no-brainer. Being impaled by a fence hurts like a fucking bitch, more at eleven. Still, he hadn’t expected it to hurt this much. It was inconceivable, the kind of pain that just couldn’t happen- until it did.

It was bad enough that he could barely focus on what was going on around him. Eddie could hear the sounds of It somewhere behind him, along with what might have been a scream from someone else but he couldn’t track or process them. Just trying to breathe took up most of his focus at this point, and it was rapidly getting harder.

Ritchie’s face was the only thing he could see at that point, so Eddie said his name. Maybe he said it twice, he wasn’t sure. He wanted to kiss him, for the first time in a while and for the first time in no time at all.

After that, things got hazier and hazier. Eddie was pretty sure that he got thrown into a cave- that had hurt like fuck too. He said some stuff, the other Losers said some stuff, they tried to move him. That had hurt, hurt, hurt, the fence piece jostling about in his guts, and he had just needed it to stop, just stop, please.

The moment after that had been the one where he realized he was dying. It was the kind of distant objectivity that only came with catastrophic situations, when you knew something bad was happening but simply couldn’t feel anything about it.

Despite his emotionless state during the realization, Eddie was struck with the urgent need to speak with Ritchie. He had to tell him. He just had to.

“Cm’ere, cm’ere,” he stuttered, looking at Ritchie, who approached obligingly. “I need to tell you something.”

It was in that moment that the speechlessness that had followed him his whole life had struck. When it came to Ritchie, Eddie was able to tell him anything, except what really mattered. Except what he really wanted to say. But he needed to say something, anything, that could get the point across.

He took a good look at Ritchie, despite the fact his vision was starting to go all fuzzy at the edges. He was looking directly at Eddie, like he was the only thing that mattered, and he realized that if things had gone differently, maybe he would have had a chance after all.

Eddie took a deep, slightly gasping, breath. 

“I fucked your mom,” he managed to get out.

 _I love you_ , he meant.

And then Eddie closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Normally, I'd say come find me at nonbinary-androids on tumblr, but like I don't post anything related to this fandom ever lmao


End file.
